


stardust to remember you by

by dinosaur



Series: infinity times infinity [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Crash Landing, Gen, Major Character Injury, Multi, Other, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 06:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4615098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaur/pseuds/dinosaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall wakes up to liquid dripping on his face.</p>
<p>He swats at it, or rather, tries to - only to find his limbs unresponsive, cold like fiber ware left out to mold from disuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stardust to remember you by

**Author's Note:**

> this probably will not make sense without having read [it hurts to become](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3369920), despite taking place before it. so, i'd rec doing that one if you haven't, first.
> 
> this is the result of me (failing at) doing a 5 sentence prompt on tumblr. spawned from the one prompting: tears of relief, niall centric ot5. so the post for that is [here](). 
> 
> generalized but strong warnings for dissociation, body paralysis, injury, trauma, disorientation and some medical stuff references. also, use of a narrative style to reflect those things boop.

  
Niall wakes up to liquid dripping on his face.  
  
He swats at it, or rather, tries to - only to find his limbs unresponsive, cold like fiber ware left out to mold from disuse.  
  
Niall’s only just trying to decide if the lead in his limbs is worth panicking over - everything seems so slow, where has all his cognition gone - when there’s a tooclose call of "Niall!" and a push against his side. A cacophony of loud noises vaguely like shouts, vaguely like a jumbled chorus, blooms above him from where the liquid is still falling and that’s – that’s Louis. Niall would know his martian cadence anywhere, does know him anywhere. But where is he?

Where is Niall?  
  
Belatedly, it occurs to him to be worried.  
  
If Louis is here and the liquid is also here and Louis isn’t stopping it, it must be Louis. Louis or - or someone. Someone else.  
  
There’s someone else. Someone Niall is forgetting.  
  
Something inside of him shakes.  
  
"Niall," someone is whispering above him, close and intent. Not Louis, but _important_. Niall tries to focus on them. It’s dark and time is congealed.

Where did Louis go?

Why can’t his arms move?

Why are all his dimensions smushed together, packed too close, pushing down on his chest?

The voice is saying something else now, something about Niall’s body and Niall wonders if it’s that he doesn’t have one anymore. A curl of panic worms its way into his chest. He wouldn’t - he wouldn’t have given up his humanoid form. He wouldn’t.  
  
Where is his body?  
  
What’s wrong with him?  
  
Someone is touching his cheek now, the pressure soft and shaky. He has a cheek. He has a face. Pleasepleaseplease. He wants to cry. Does he have eyes?  
  
There’s a brush against the tops of his cheekbones, his temples, "Shhhh, Ni, Ni, Ni, it’s okay."  
  
Maybe he is crying.  
  
_It’s not okay_ , he wants to say, wants to know if he still has lungs and vocal chords and if he can still reach those sweet notes that make the ship jump happily.  
  
The ship.  
  
Oh.  
  
Oh no. Ohno ohnoohnoohno. _No_.  
  
There’s a burning hurt building somewhere lower in Niall, deeper than a core, taller than a crevasse. A ball of something that wracks him to shaking, sends his awareness to a wider dimension.

Something is very wrong.  
  
There’s a bold purple smear in front of him, a sharp voice growing clearer, "- please Niall, please. Please don’t panic, I gotta -"  
  
Is he panicking?  
  
“Please, baby.” There’s a sharpness against his arm, and awareness rushes in like someone has flipped the gravity up 20 newtons.  
  
Loose energy. Lights. Bodies. Bones. Echoing torn space. Darkness. Pressure. Absence. A rush of sound so heavy it burns. Grating. Pressure. Pressure. Pressurepressure.  
  
And oh stars, Niall definitely has lungs. He uses them to scream in the face of somuchtoomuchnonono. Uses them to cry and struggle against the horror around him.  
  
“Niall! Niall, please please, Ni!” Now the voice is loud and urgent. Scared.  
  
Me too, Niall wants to say, but it feels beyond him. Anything beyond laying there and echoing the mess of metal and people and space around him feels too much. No one could expect more of him. What does the voice want.  
  
“I know, baby, I know, I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I know it hurts, but we have to get the metal out and relight your wings.”  
  
And oh.  
  
Oh.  
  
The mess is him. The mess is his body.  
  
"Stay with me," The voice is saying. There’s a palm over his leaking eyes, heat pinpointed at the points over his irises. Like a tattoo mod checking for brain injuries. Like -  
  
_Zayn_ , Niall realizes. The voice is Zayn.  
  
“Niall,” Zayn says, clarion bell in the mass of blurred sensations in Niall’s peripheral senses.  
  
He wants to answer. Screaming is hurting his throat. A whispered _Zayn_ would be softer. He misses Zayn.  
  
He misses - misses someone.  
  
Why can’t he remember. Is he too low, maybe he’s at the wrong dimension. Maybe he should switch planes. But, his wings wrinkle unnaturally when he flexes them and he gasps himself to silence.  
  
The hand on his face twitches.  
  
“Niall.”  
  
Niall screws up his energy, directs it up his aching throat, pushes through the muddle of his dimensions and the pull of sorrow around him, “Zayn.”  
  
The air goes yellow sharp as Zayn makes a sound half like choking, half like _thank you_.

Zayn whispers “Niall,” like a prayer, his hands brush Niall’s face, his neck, his ribs like ritual.

Niall wants to thank him, for letting Niall know he still has those bits. For staying with Niall while he’s floating.

He wonders about his lower half. Maybe Zayn will let him know it’s okay too.

Zayn is murmuring something to someone else, the responses clipped and unfamiliar. Not one of them, not. Not – not one of the someones Niall needs to remember.

He must make a frustrated noise because Zayn’s hands are back on him, reassuring now, “It’s okay, baby, just the med techs.”

And that’s. That’s strange.

Niall fights against the sludge of his senses, gives up his 6th and 7th as too muddled to deal with and tries just for the basics. His eyes sting and cloud, his vision growing lighter and then fuzzier ever few seconds. Taking a deep breath means a sharp wrenching pain, but he shakes and let it run its course.

The blur of Zayn stops moving. “Ni?”

Niall makes a grunt of assent, fighting with the dead elastic of his arms.

The smell of Zayn turns sickly and his hands lock down on Niall’s wrists, “No! Niall, don’t, you can’t.”

Yes, he _knows_ he can’t – he’s trying to.

“No, god,” Zayn laughs weakly. It’s a fragile sound. Like something spread too thin with too much current run through it. “I know you can’t, it’s the shock and the antijection. You can’t –“ the shape of Zayn’s core shivers and Niall feels sick. “You can’t move your legs, okay.”

_Why._

Silence.

“Zayn,” Niall tries.

The weight on his wrists lifts. The air over Niall’s chest flutters with Zayn’s hands for a second before they settle back on his hips.

Niall can just make out the purplelavender shape of Zayn’s hair in the next flare of energy. Something is burning. And Zayn is beyond mussed. Not like he’s been off with Louis or – Harry or Liam but. Like he’s in trouble.

Like they’re bad off –

_Harry and Liam_.

Niall makes a faint happy hum.

There they are. That’s, that’s who. Silly to have forgotten, of course it’s them, of course Harry and Liam. He tries to reach for them in the link, tries to share the laugh – their faces will be aghast and then they will smile and poke Niall and and and –

Niall runs headlong into nothing.

Runs into a lack of a connection so hard the energy he’d gathered for it thrums down his spine in a burst of pain. This is not just a mute, but a true absence. A true quiet in the space of his head that is always burgeoning and chatty with love, with _them_.

It’s empty.

There is no link.

“–gained consciousness and reached out to the –“ Zayn is all sharp edges and urgency.

“Fucking –“ Louis hisses in return. Louis is back. But Niall didn’t feel him come back.

Niall can’t feel any of them.

He’s all alone.

Nonononoonono.

“Shhhh,” Zayn is trying.

Nono. No. No. Nononono. No.

There’s a frantic press to his heaving chest.

The darkness grows. His dimensions are sliding lower and lower.

When he slips back into oblivion, he welcomes it.

_No._

 

 


End file.
